The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum’s emphasis on expediency over its 25-year history has come at the expense of legitimacy. Two decades after first asking to join, India remains on the outside of the organization. As a result, APEC has missed an opportunity to forge deeper trade and investment linkages with what has become one of the region’s most dynamic economies. The members of APEC may now have to court India rather than the other way around. The proliferation of bilateral and regional free trade agreements and negotiations has provided India other options. Leaders at the 2014 APEC summit in Beijing on November 10 and 11 have an opportunity to respond to worries about the group’s relevance by pledging to add members in 2015, in particular by placing India at the top of the list.
